Terry Thomas Baxter was 15 and a Grade 10 student at St. Catharine’s Collegiate when he was last seen on the evening of Thursday, November 21, 1996. He left the Ussher’s Creek boat launch in a 14-foot aluminum boat on the upper Niagara River with a 66-year-old family friend, Baron Mario Sciortino, reportedly to test the boat. The vessel was later found capsized near Dufferin Island, with gym bags containing liquor and cigarettes recovered nearby.

Baron Sciortino’s body was recovered near the brink of the Horseshoe Falls on the Canadian side, but Terry has never been found. A large search involving volunteers, firefighters, military personnel and both the Canadian and U.S. Coast Guards began the next day; by November 24 search efforts were reduced to periodic shoreline checks. The RCMP took over the probe from the regional police on November 26, 1996, and inquiries reached into New York State.

The case remains open and unresolved. Did anyone see Terry or that boat on the upper Niagara River the evening of November 21, 1996?